


And Heaven, Too

by orphan_account



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-31 00:33:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3957781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma Swan doesn't believe in soulmates. And why should she?</p>
            </blockquote>





	And Heaven, Too

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [Florence And The Machine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FRPg9DS-oA).

Emma was five years old the first time she learned what soulmates are, thanks to her enthusiastic first grade teacher, on the very first day of school. Most of the other kids had known already; a few were even born to soulmate couples with matching symbols on their bodies. To Emma, it had been a revelation. To know that there was someone out there, made just for you – it sounded almost too good to be true.

As it turned out, it was.

Her eighth foster family was an older lady, Ms. Claudia, and her young niece. Her new forster mother had been married, once, and her husband had borne the same mark as she did. It hadn’t lasted. It’s more complicated than that, she’d told Emma once; and that was how Emma learnt that life is messy and complicated, and being made for each other is no guarantee for an happy ending.

Emma had a cigarette burn on her left wrist, dark and coarse at the touch  and almost perfectly rounded – right next to the thin serpentine line of her soulmark; and she couldn’t help but think how hilarious that was, until the day it wasn’t anymore. She ran away on a winter morning, because she was so done with it all, and no one would care anyway; and life went on.

Neal’s mark was just plain odd, some sort of shape that looked vaguely like a crescent moon, so different from the stylized symbols with the sharp corners Emma was used to seeing on everyone else. Then again, her own mark looked pretty weird, too, so she supposed she really hadn’t much room to talk. Neal himself was wonderful, in the way that he was everything she needed; and for the first time, she was well and truly happy.

Who the hell needed a soulmate, anyway?

When Henry showed up on her door the night of her twenty-eighth birthday, Emma couldn’t help but notice that the kid’s – her son, her freaking son – mark was pretty unusual, too. As it turned out, later on, it was an Enchanted Forest thing, images instead of words. Her parents – and that would never be not weird – with their matching arrowhead, and Graham’s print, Ruby’s circle and August’s star. It was a strange thought, and not one Emma was all comfortable with.

Doesn’t this mean, she’d half-asked, half-accused David,  that falling in love with someone from a different realm is impossible? So much for fairytale characters and their happy endings, she thought; because however the thing with Neal had ended, they’d been really happy for a while, and –

and then, of course, it turned out that Neal was as much of a storybook character as they all were, and Emma didn’t quite know how to deal with that. Of one thing she was sure; she’d never needed a soulmate in the first place, and now she was quite sure she didn’t want one, either.

The first time Hook saw her mark it was on the return trip from Neverland; he winced and bolted – literally bolted – and Emma didn’t know what to make of that. He’d admitted to kissing her in front of her parents and said things that got her confused and dazzled and almost hopeful, and now this.

He avoided her after that, and they were almost in Storybrooke by the time Emma went to seek him out because damnit, she needed to know. “Do you know him?” she straight-up asked him, and Hook blinked.

“Who?”

“My mark,” Emma said, impatient. “Whoever matches mine. You know him.” It had to be a him – she knew herself well enough for that – and if Hook of all people had known him, there was a good enough chance her soulmate was dead. Good riddance.

He paused, licking at his lips, and Emma’s eyes fell on his soulmark, because, honestly, it’s not like he was trying to keep it covered anyway. Hook’s soulmark was on his collarbone, odd, sinuous lines could be that reminded Emma of the flowing of the waves in the ocean, and of course it would.

“I used to,” he said, eventually; and Emma had to left out a breath because here it was, her faceless soulmate was a real person, and she wasn’t sure she was ready for that. “I can’t offer many details, though,” Hook continued, and thanks god. She’d never felt more relieved in her life.

“That’s fine,” she said, maybe too fast. “I’m not… big into soulmates. Keep your details.” And then she was the one running away, and he didn’t not go after her.

He seemed to go out of his way to avoid her after that, to Emma’s extreme curiosity. It didn’t seem much like him – to pursue her with such determination, only to stop once he’d realized she had another man’s mark. As if he’d been expecting any different. It was strange and maybe even a little disappointing –

but then everything went to hell again, and Emma just forgot.

She forgot everything; and by the time she remembered, there was already a new crisis brewing, and after that there was the portal, and after that –

It’s not long into their time-travel adventure that Emma found herself where she’d never expected to be – in a tavern that seemed straight out a Renaissance Fair, flirting shamelessly with a version of Killian Jones that is so much more Hook than the man she’d met ever was.

And then he was carrying her back to his ship like a scene out of some movie – because no one had ever, ever did something like this for Emma Swan before, at any degree of inebriation – his right hand cradling her head, left arm under her legs, her head against his chest; and that was when she saw.

Hook’s soulmark, the one she’d seen so many times before, was almost completely faded, black dwindling into pale grey. It looked like an old tattoo, some part of registered – and behind it, neat as ever, was a single, curved line, in a shape Emma knew by heart. It was, she realized with a wave of panic, the same mark she’d seen on her hand day after day for thirty years.

And that was why she let him kiss her, later, the past ghost of the man who loved her so desperately – because in some small corner of her mind she couldn’t help but entertain the thought of what if, and how could it be with him, if she only let herself.

Emma somehow managed to compose herself, and act for the rest of the evening as if she hadn’t just gotten one of the biggest shocks of her life. She didn’t say anything as Prince Charles led his Princess Leia twirling around the ballroom; and she didn’t say anything as they watched Snow burn, only to find out that maybe there was still hope for a happy ending after all.

It was only later, when everything was said and done – Snow White and her Prince Charming reunited for the briefest of moments, and his all-too-satisfied whisper, must run in the family – and that was when Emma raised her head to look at him, trying to keep her voice as casual as possible. “So, that soulmark of yours,” she began; and one look was all she needed to realize that he knew that she knew, because he brought his hand to his chest to cover the mark all of a sudden, and let out a long sigh.

“Bloody hell,” he said; sounding much like a child finding out that Santa is not real, and Emma would laugh if she weren’t, well, absolutely mad at him.

Hook closed his eyes, brought one hand to scratch behind his ear. “That’s….” he paused, let out a long, trembling breath. “That’s got nothing to do with you, love. I suppose I’m not big into soulmates either,” he gave her a bashful little smile at that, and Emma suddenly found it hard to be quite so angry anymore. “So I’ve had it covered every few years or so since, well, forever.”

She almost wondered what forever meant – if it had to do with Milah, or was something different altogether – but she couldn’t shake the question hovering at the edges of her mind. “Were you ever going to tell me?” Emma found herself asking –

because how dared he, coming around acting like a lovesick fool, destroying all the walls and layers she’d put together over the years, with such easiness, as if things were that simple, as if he would never go away leaving only ruins and ashes in his wake.

His hesitance was all the answer she needed, but then he rolled his eyes at her, completely ignoring her glare. “Oh, come on, Swan,” he said, completely ignoring her glare. “As if you wouldn't have run like hell in the other direction if I’d told you.”

And Emma wanted nothing more than deny him the satisfaction of being right, for once, but he knew her so damn well – and when had that stopped being annoying, and become something she actually liked?

“I wouldn’t have!” she said anyway, if only for the answering look she was sure to receive – exasperated and amused, as she’d expected; but there was such fondness in those blue eyes, and it was almost overwhelming just how loving that look was.

“Okay, maybe I would have,” Emma amended, getting a knowing smirk in response. “But…” and there she paused, confronted with the sheer enormity of what she was going to say, “I’m not running now, am I?”

(And when she kissed him, later, it meant so much more than it had the first time around. It was acceptance, fully and completely, of all the things they were and could have and everything they could ever be; and possibilities and hopes and new beginnings.)  
  
(And maybe, deep down, love.)

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://www.qvcksilver.tumblr.com/).


End file.
